Me in a Mary Engelbreit daily calendar from a few years ago.
And the Yankees are the only undefeated team in the AL East. Much as I still want snow, spring does have one glorious thing: BASEBALL.
NauenThen
Another afternoon in the universe of baseball
May 7, 2017
My granddaughter Meagan is the pitcher her, her team the Lightning in the West Side Little League. She's 12, has power & a great motion, with that little hiccup in the hip that you see in college ball. It's softball & underhand so her arm doesn't wear out. The girls know the rudiments & occasionally execute well, although most of the scoring was on overthrows & stolen bases.
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Days off
April 19, 2017
Staggered through the last of Passover & am happily eating chametz again.
Ended the holiday at a baseball game. Yankee stadium opened on this date (April 18) in 1923. This was the "new" Yankee stadium we were at, of course. A crisp 2-hour game against the ChiSox that ended their 8-game winning streak. A chilly 50°. I thought I wouldn't bother keeping score but once they started with the lineup I quick drew a card in my little notebook. It's how I watch a game. I used to draw scorecards on scrap paper on the way to the ballpark before someone gave me a fancy wire-bound scorebook.
All baseball is the same game & not like anything else ever. That's what's so great about it. Read More
Ended the holiday at a baseball game. Yankee stadium opened on this date (April 18) in 1923. This was the "new" Yankee stadium we were at, of course. A crisp 2-hour game against the ChiSox that ended their 8-game winning streak. A chilly 50°. I thought I wouldn't bother keeping score but once they started with the lineup I quick drew a card in my little notebook. It's how I watch a game. I used to draw scorecards on scrap paper on the way to the ballpark before someone gave me a fancy wire-bound scorebook.
All baseball is the same game & not like anything else ever. That's what's so great about it. Read More
A poem from the past II
March 22, 2016
Here's another poem that turned up while I've been going through files. This one I've edited from the version I first wrote 25 years ago.
Away Game
the Lisbon of Henry the Navigator
cobblestones, tiles with the colors of isolation,
baleful pigs on a truck
romantic Lisbon on the Atlantic
where endeth land and where beginneth …
but
no one to talk to
blisters (why these shoes?)
alone, travel’s effort not adventure
hotel TV: smarmy British game show
Bogart flick with Portuguese subtitles
& suddenly baseball
heaves into sight
so unexpected it Read More
Away Game
the Lisbon of Henry the Navigator
cobblestones, tiles with the colors of isolation,
baleful pigs on a truck
romantic Lisbon on the Atlantic
where endeth land and where beginneth …
but
no one to talk to
blisters (why these shoes?)
alone, travel’s effort not adventure
hotel TV: smarmy British game show
Bogart flick with Portuguese subtitles
& suddenly baseball
heaves into sight
so unexpected it Read More
Beisbol
July 31, 2014
Mercè at her first-ever baseball game; note hotdog & beer. Neil at far from his first game.
I can't imagine a more perfect night. Sitting outside in 70° weather, in the 3rd row almost behind the backstop (we missed two foul balls by one row)—and for $15 no less. Leisurely conversations. No electronic distraction. Getting to Staten Island by ferry, the 1st Avenue bus waiting at the terminal on the way home. Explaining baseball to a Spanish newbie, and tangling ourselves into memory & history. How threadbare my life would be without baseball. Read More
Linda Kittell
January 31, 2014
Just received word from her husband Ron Goble that my friend Linda died on Wednesday. She had had a rare lung cancer. I'll remember her big smile, her big laugh, her love for her family & for baseball, her good poetry.
Love
January 8, 2014
What a good poet Linda Kittell is. I included her "What Baseball Teaches Us About Love" in my anthology of women's writings about baseball 20-odd years ago; to this day, I can't read or hear that poem without crying. We became friends through that book & have been ever since. I've visited her in Idaho, & we read together at a Baseball Hall of Fame event. At last she has a collection out, Love Reports to Spring Training, about a left-handed pitcher named Love. If she lived anywhere but rural Idaho, she'd be well-known, I have no doubt. She deserves to be.
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